Ad placement in mobile applications and websites

ABSTRACT

A method of placing advertisements involves sending, from a device, a request for at least one ad position, receiving, in response to the request, ad positioning information specifying an ad position in a stream and a related content position in the stream, determining, by the device, that a related content item is present in the stream, and overriding, by the device, the ad positioning information by placing an advertisement associated with the related content in the related content position within the stream.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a non-provisional patent application of U.S.Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/913,183, filed on Dec. 6,2013, and entitled: “Methods and Apparatus for Scalable Native In-StreamAdvertising in Mobile Applications and Websites,” and U.S. ProvisionalPatent Application Ser. No. 62/066,628, filed on Oct. 21, 2014, andentitled: “Scalable Native In-Stream Advertising for Mobile Applicationsand Websites.” Accordingly, this non-provisional patent applicationclaims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. Nos.61/913,183 and 62/066,628 under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e). U.S. ProvisionalPatent Application Ser. Nos. 61/913,183 and 62/066,628 are herebyincorporated in their entirety.

BACKGROUND

Advertising on websites and/or mobile devices typically involves simplyinserting a banner ad of a standard size at a fixed position on thescreen. A standard size is helpful because advertisers understand thesize and how it will look, as well as enabling advertisers to easilyadvertise across a variety of locations. However, “banner blindness” isa phenomenon whereby users become conditioned to ignore the standardizedbanners since they are so ubiquitous. Native advertising is a type ofadvertising that allows the developers and publishers of applications topresent advertising within the stream of content, which benefits thepublishers by decreasing banner blindness and improving ad revenue,while also benefiting the users by not reserving a substantial amount ofscreen real estate for the permanent display of ads.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document may contain materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentof the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

SUMMARY

In general, in one aspect, the invention relates to a method of placingadvertisements, comprising: sending, from a device, a request for atleast one ad position; receiving, in response to the request, adpositioning information, wherein the ad positioning informationcomprising an ad position in a stream and a related content position inthe stream, wherein the ad position in the stream and the relatedcontent position in the stream are different positions within thestream; determining, by the device, that a related content item ispresent in the stream, wherein the stream in displayed within anapplication, wherein the related content item is located a firstposition within the stream; and overriding, by the device, the adpositioning information by placing an advertisement associated with therelated content in the related content position within the stream.

In general, in one aspect, the invention relates to a method of placingadvertisements, comprising: receiving, from a device, a request for atleast one ad position in a stream in an application executing on thedevice; in response to the request: determining ad positioninginformation, wherein the ad positioning information specifies adpositioning information for at least two different ad formats, whereinthe at least two different ad formats comprise video, text only, andtext and images; and providing the ad positioning information to thedevice.

In general, in one aspect, the invention relates to a system for placingadvertisements, comprising: an ad server configured to: receive arequest for at least one ad position from a device; in response to therequest: determine ad positioning information comprising an ad positionin a stream and a related content position in the stream, wherein therelated content position is associated with a specific advertisement;and provide the ad positioning information to the device.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram in accordance with one or moreembodiments of the invention.

FIG. 2A shows a depiction of an advertisement in accordance with one ormore embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 2B shows a depiction of stream in accordance with one or moreembodiments of the invention.

FIG. 3 shows a flowchart for ad positioning in accordance with one ormore embodiments of the invention.

FIGS. 4A, 4B, 4C, and 4D show examples of ad positioning in accordancewith one or more embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 5 shows a computing system in accordance with one or moreembodiments of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Specific embodiments of the invention will now be described in detailwith reference to the accompanying figures. Like elements in the variousfigures are denoted by like reference numerals for consistency.

In the following detailed description of embodiments of the invention,numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a morethorough understanding of the invention. However, it will be apparent toone of ordinary skill in the art that the invention may be practicedwithout these specific details. In other instances, well-known featureshave not been described in detail to avoid unnecessarily complicatingthe description.

Throughout this detailed description the terms “ad” and “advertisement”may be used interchangeably. Additionally, the advertisements referredto throughout this specification are “native” ads, whether or not theadjective “native” is included when referring to an advertisement. Toaid in the understanding of the invention, a few terms will be defined.A developer is the creator(s) of an application. The developer maydecide whether or not to allow advertisements to appear in his or herapplication, and/or the format in which the advertisements will appear.A publisher is an entity that distributes an application or serves awebsite, which may include advertisements that are displayed to theuser. A publisher may work with any number of advertisers and/ordevelopers. The advertiser is the entity for which the advertisementsare being shown.

In general, embodiments of the invention provide a method, system,and/or computer readable medium for positioning ads. Specifically arequest is sent from a device for at least one ad position, andpositioning information is received in response. The positioninginformation may include a specific position for advertisements, and/orrelated content positions for placing advertisements next to contentsimilar to the advertisement. The device may determine when relatedcontent is present, and may then override the ad positioning informationreceived from the ad server by placing the advertisement near therelated content.

FIG. 1 shows system (100) which includes client device (105),application (110), stream (115), ads (120), software development kit(SDK) (125), ad server (130), ad placer (135), content selector (140),ad dashboard (170), image processing server (145), image resizer (150),data store (155), developer device (160), and publisher device (165).Each of these components is described below.

In one or more embodiments, client device (105) may be any computingdevice, such as a smart phone, mobile phone, handheld gaming device,smart watch, personal digital assistant (PDA), laptop computer, desktopcomputer, etc. While client device (105) is preferably a mobile device,client device (105) may be a non-mobile device. Client device (105) mayinclude any suitable hardware components (not shown) such as a display,touchscreen, speakers, microphone, other input devices, processors,memory, etc. In various embodiments of the invention, the client device(105) is communicatively connected to ad server (130), image processingserver (145) and/or data store (155) via wired and/or wirelesscommunications using any suitable communication standard, such as WiFi,cellular data, etc.

In one or more embodiments, client device (105) has one or moreapplications installed, such as application (110). Application (110) maybe any executable code (e.g., binary code) capable of executing onclient device (105). Application (110) may be installed by the user orowner of client device (105), or may come installed by the manufacturerof client device (105). Examples of types of programs that application(110) may be include, but are not limited to: web browsers, socialnetworking, messaging, financial, games, productivity, financial, video,photography, etc. In one or more embodiments, application (110) includesa stream (115). The stream (115) is a presentation of, list of, or otherorganization of content within application (110). The stream (115) mayinclude both content and ads (120). Additional details about streams(115) are described in FIG. 2B. Ads (120) are advertisements provided bythe ad server (130). Specifically, in one or more embodiments, ads (120)are native advertisements. Native advertisements are advertisements thatmatch the form and/or function of the platform on which they appear. Inother words, rather than appear separate from the stream in a spacereserved for advertisements, native ads appear inside the stream in aformat and appearance similar to the content. The publisher and/ordeveloper may choose to differentiate advertisements substantially instyle or marking from the content in the stream to make it clear to theuser that the given item is an advertisement, not content. Additionally,in one or more embodiments, depending on the application (110), thedeveloper, the publisher, or any other suitable factors, oneadvertisement may have a different format than another advertisement.For example, in an application that is focused on images, anadvertisement may be primarily an image with a very limited amount oftext. In contrast, if an application is focused on short text messages,the size of an advertisement may be much smaller—such as the same sizeas the short text messages. The stream (115) and ads (120) are addressedin more detail in FIGS. 2A and 2B.

Referring to FIG. 2A, FIG. 2A shows an advertisement in accordance withone or more embodiments of the invention. Specifically, the ad format(200) is shown. The ad format (200) is a standard set by the developerof an application. Alternatively, the ad format (200) may be set byanother suitable entity, such as a publisher of the advertisement. Thead format (200) enables a publisher that wants to show an advertisementto understand the format in which the advertisement will be displayed.In one or more embodiments, an ad format (200) may be specific to agiven application, or even a specific use of said application. The adformat (200) includes image location (205), image height (210), imagewidth (215), text location (220), text height (225), text width (230),disclosure (235), additional elements (240), and hot spot (245). Each ofthese elements may be specified by the developer or other suitableentity, and may vary wildly from one application to another, or evenfrom one usage of an application to another usage of the sameapplication.

In one or more embodiments, the advertisement may include an image. Theimage may be in any suitable format. In one or more embodiments, theimage may be a graphics interchange format (.gif), video, or otherformat rather than a static image. Image location (205) specifies alocation where an image associated with the advertisement (120) may belocated. The image is also associated with other information, orlimitations—image height (210) and image width (215). Image height (210)specifies the height of the image for the given ad format (200), whileimage width specifies the width of the image for the given ad format(200). The image height (210) and image width (215) may be measured byany suitable standard such as pixels, inches, centimeters, etc.Optionally, there may be more than one image in a single advertisement,in which case there would also be multiple image locations, imageheights, and image widths.

In one or more embodiments, the advertisement may include text. Textlocation (220) specifies a location where text associated with theadvertisement (120) may be located. The text is also associated withother information, or limitations—text height (225) and text width(230). Text height (225) specifies the height of the text for the givenad format (200), while text width (230) specifies the width of the textfor the given ad format (200). The text height (225) and text width(230) may be measured by any suitable standard such as pixels, inches,centimeters, etc. Optionally, there may be more than one text area in asingle advertisement, in which case there would also be multiple textlocations, text heights, and text widths.

In one or more embodiments, disclosure (235) is text that indicates thatthe nearby text, images, or other items are an advertisement. This maybe required by the application or by another entity in order for theuser to distinguish the ad from other content in their stream.Alternatively, in one or more embodiments, disclosure (235) may be animage, video, audio, or any combination thereof.

In one or more embodiments, there may be additional element(s) (240)included in the ad format (200). Additional element(s) (240) may be anyadditional option or limitation available for the presentation of anadvertisement. For example, additional element(s) (240) may include, butare not limited to: a poll, a survey, an advertiser name, additionalimage options, additional text options, videos, audio, content tagging,or any other content that may be included in an advertisement.

In one or more embodiments, hotspot (245) may be a portion of the imagethat is more important than other portions of the image. For example, ifan image contains a logo of a company surrounded by other objects, thenthe logo may be the hotspot (245). By specifying a hotspot (245), if theimage needs to be cropped, rotated, resized, or otherwise altered, thehotspot (245) may be prioritized for preservation, either in part orwhole, so that (in this example) the company logo is preserved, whilethe superfluous content may be removed. Hotspot (245) may be of anysuitable size or sizes, and may be located on any part of an image. Forexample, the hotspot (245) may be located in a central portion of theimage. Alternatively, the hotspot (245) may be located not in a centralportion of the image. Additional details related to using the hotspotfor resizing or scaling the image are described below.

Referring to FIG. 2B, FIG. 2B shows a user interface of a mobile device(250) that includes stream (255) The mobile device (250) may be, forexample, a smartphone. Stream (255) is shown on a display of mobiledevice (250). Within a stream (255) there are different positions (i.e.,position 1 (260), position 2 (265), position 3 (270), position 4 (275),and/or position 5 (280)) where items may be located, such as content oradvertisements. Content is items displayed, such as messages, images, orother things associated with the application that isdisplaying/generating stream (255). Specifically, in the stream shown inFIG. 2B, the content items are located in position 1 (260), position 3(270), and position 4 (275). Stream (255) also includes advertisements.Specifically, the advertisements are native advertisements and looksimilar to the content items included in stream (255). In the streamshown in FIG. 2B, the advertisements are located at position 2 (265) andposition 5 (280). The positions of content and the positions ofadvertisements may be set by a developer, publisher, or other suitableentity. The specifics of when and where advertisements may be shown arediscussed in further detail, below.

In one or more embodiments, the spacing between ads (285) is the numberof positions between advertisements. If there is too much space betweenads, then a given application and/or stream may not be monetized to themost efficient level. Alternatively, too little space between ads maydrive users away from using the application and/or stream and result ina less effective monetization scheme. Spacing between ads (285) is onefactor of many that may be controlled by the developer, publisher, orother suitable entity, and is discussed in more detail, below.

Returning to FIG. 1, in one or more embodiments, software developmentkit (SDK) (125) is a set of software development tools that allow thedeployment of advertisements using the method and system of thisinvention. The SDK (125) may easily be incorporated into the code,libraries, or other suitable portion of an application by the developer,thereby enabling the developer to easily access the functionalitiesdescribed herein. SDK (125) may support developers creating applicationin a variety of different formats, operating systems, or otherstandards. Specifically, SDK (125) may include functionality to operatewith any format, operating system, or other standard now known or laterdeveloped. Further, SDK (125) may enable a developer to easily accessfunctionalities associated with ad placer (135), content selector (140),image resizer (150), and/or any other functionality included in thepresent invention. Because of the closely related nature of thefunctionalities of SDK (125) and other components of the invention, SDK(125) will be discussed in more detail in conjunction with othercomponents of the invention.

In one or more embodiments, SDK (125) may be implemented in another formor method. Specifically, if the advertisements are being displayed on awebsite, a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and/or JavaScript tagimplementation may be used to provide the functionality described withregards to SDK (125). In one or more embodiments, an HTML tag may beinserted into the webpage that acts similar to the SDK. The HTML tagcauses some JavaScript to be downloaded and executed. The JavaScript isable to parse the HTML code of the website and identify additional HTMLtags that identify information about the advertisement(s) such as adlocation(s), image location(s), image width(s) and/or height(s), textplacement(s), text width(s) and/or height(s), etc. The HTML and/orJavaScript embodiments may be implemented in any manner now known orlater developed, and should not be limited to the above example.

In one or more embodiments, ad server (130) may be any suitablecomputing device or devices, such as a server, rack, mainframe, desktopPersonal Computer (PC), laptop, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA),telephone, mobile phone, kiosk, cable box, and any other device. Adserver (130) is communicatively connected to image processing server(145), data store (155), developer device (160), and/or publisher device(165) via wired and/or wireless communications using any suitablecommunication standard, such as WiFi, the Internet, cellular data, etc.In one or more embodiments, ad server (130), image processing server(145), and/or data store (155) may be implemented on a single computingdevice, rather than on separate computing devices as depicted in FIG. 1.Alternatively, ad server (130), image processing server (145), and/ordata store (155) may be implemented on separate computing devices.Further still, ad server (130), image processing server (145), and/ordata store (155) may be implemented in separate virtual machines on asingle device, or on any combination of the above methods, or any othersuitable implementation. Ad server (130) includes ad placer (135),content selector (140), and ad dashboard (170).

In one or more embodiments, ad dashboard (170) includes functionalityfor building an advertisement. Ad dashboard (170) is an application thatexecutes on ad server (130). Alternatively, ad dashboard (170) may beimplemented on a computing device separate from ad server (130), such asa separate server. Specifically, ad dashboard (170) includesfunctionality to receive various components of the advertisement from apublisher, developer, and/or other suitable entity, and create theadvertisement. Specifically, an image or images may be received, as wellas various text variations (i.e., a short text variant, a long textvariant, etc.), audio, video, and/or any other element of anadvertisement may be received in any format now known or laterdeveloped. The specific location of items within an advertisement, andmany other elements, may not be specified at the time the advertisementis built. Rather, those other elements may be determined at the time theadvertisement is sent to a client device, at the time the advertisementis rendered, or at any other suitable time. In one or more embodiments,the specifics of location, etc., are not included because the publisher,developer, or other entity may not know the exact advertisement formatdetails at the time the advertisement is built.

In one or more embodiments, ad placer (135) is an application and/ormodule executing on ad server (130) for placing advertisements in astream (e.g., content at position 1, advertisement at position 2,content at position 3 etc. . . . ). Specifically, the ad placer (135)includes functionality for refreshing and/or caching advertisements,placing a single advertisement, placing multiple advertisements, placingadvertisements of multiple formats, placing advertisements in sections,placing advertisements related to the content of the stream, gatheringad metrics, previewing advertisements, and other functionalities neededby the invention. Some, or all, of the functionality discussed withregards to ad placer (135) may be performed on or by client device (105)via the functionalities included in SDK (125).

In one or more embodiments, ad placer (135) includes functionality forrefreshing and/or caching advertisements. Specifically, refreshingand/or caching advertisements refers to controlling what advertisementsare sent to, or stored on, client device (105), and when thoseadvertisements are inserted into a stream and displayed to a user. Inone or more embodiments, ad placer (135) may respond to requests from aclient device for more advertisements as discussed below with regards toplacement of any type of advertisements.

In one or more embodiments, with regards to the caching ofadvertisements, many of the functionalities may be implemented on clientdevice (105) via SDK (125). Specifically, the ad placer (135) (and/orSDK (125)) may set a hard cap on the number of advertisements that maybe stored on a client device at any given moment, such as 1, 3, 5, orany other suitable number. Alternatively, the size of the cache mayautomatically adjust to (or the hard cap may be set based on) theparticular usage patterns exhibited by the user and/or settings of thepublisher, such as scroll speed, advertisement frequency, size ofadvertisements, size of content items in the stream, fill rate, etc. Thecache may function as a queue, and advertisement may be removed from thecache in any suitable manner. In one or more embodiments, when a clientdevice receives an advertisement, an expiration timer may be set for theadvertisement, such that after a time period, the advertisement is staleand will no longer be shown to a user. A publisher may not be chargedfor a stale advertisement, as a user never viewed the advertisement. Theexpiration timer may be of any suitable length, such as 5 minutes, 10minutes, etc. Upon expiration of an advertisement, SDK (125) mayimmediately (or within a certain preset time limit) request additionaladvertisements from the ad placer. Alternatively, the SDK (125) may waitto refresh the expired advertisement. For example, the SDK (125) maywait until the number of advertisements in the cache falls below acertain level.

In one or more embodiments, ad placer (135) includes functionality forplacing a single advertisement. Said another way, the ad placer (135)includes functionality to place individual advertisements withinspecific positions within a stream. The advertisement may be placed, forexample, in a specific position within a stream, such as the firstposition, the 5^(th), the 12^(th), etc. The particular position may bepre-determined by any suitable entity, such as a developer and/orpublisher. The publisher and/or developer may indicate, via a webinterface or other suitable user interface, where he or she would likeadvertisements to appear. For example, a publisher may indicate that anadvertisement should be placed at positions 3, 15, and 20 within astream. In one or more embodiments, the advertisements may be set torepeat at a given frequency (i.e., every 10 positions, etc.) althoughthe particular ad that is displayed may change. Additionally, oralternatively, the publisher and/or developer may specify spacingbetween advertisements (i.e., first advertisement at position 3, with 5positions between advertisements).

In one or more embodiments, ad placer (135) and a client device maycommunicate regarding the placement of advertisements using a variety offunctions, methods, queries, etc. For example, an ad request may returna collection of ad data (such as formatting information, imageinformation, text content, etc.), which in one or more embodiments, maysometimes be empty. In one or more embodiments, the ad request mayreturn a URL for an image to be used in the advertisement. The URL maybe “incomplete.” Specifically, the URL may have aspects that need to beprocessed by the SDK or other suitable components. For example, theprovided URL to an image may be“http://www.abcimages.com/adimageXXXxXXX.image” where the“XXXxXXX.image” portion of the URL represents the desired size of theimage. Thus, the SDK or other suitable element may process the URL tospecify the desired size of the image for the advertisement, and theresulting URL may look like:“http://www.abcimages.com/adimage200×300.image.” The URL may beprocessed to include any type or amount of information. A positionrequest may return a collection of positions where advertisements shouldbe placed. Optionally, the above to requests may be combined, such thatad positioning information is included with a collection of ad data.Various other tokens, objects, etc., may also be exchanged between thead placer (135) and a client device. The responses may be sent and/orreturned in any format, such as a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)object.

In one or more embodiments, ad placer (135) includes functionality toplace advertisements of multiple formats. The advertisements may be ofany specified form, such as image, text, audio, video, some combinationof the above, or any other suitable form. The publisher and/or developermay specify the format of a given advertisement for a given position(s).For example, a video advertisement may be placed every 15 positionswhile a text advertisement may be placed every 3 positions. In one ormore embodiments, the format of an advertisement may be specified at thesame time the advertisement positioning is set by the publisher and/ordeveloper, or may be set at any other suitable time.

In one or more embodiments, ad placer (135) includes functionality toplacing advertisements in sections. The sections refer to the formatsused by operating systems for mobile devices. Ad placer (135) includesfunctionalities for interfacing and/or placing advertisements for anyoperating system, using any standard or method now known or laterdeveloped.

In one or more embodiments, ad placer (135) includes functionality toplace advertisements related to the content of the stream. The SDK (125)may include functionality to determine the subject matter of the stream,either generally or at a high level of specificity. With this knowledge,when the publisher has indicated that he or she would like to placeadvertisements next to related content, the SDK (125) is able tooverride the positioning information set by the ad placer (135) andinstead set the position of an ad such that the ad is next to a relatedcontent item.

In one or more embodiments, ad placer (135) includes functionality togather metrics related to the advertisements placed into the stream. Themetrics are gathered on and/or by the client device (105) (i.e., usingfunctionality provided by SDK (125)). The metrics may include anyinformation able to be tracked including, but not limited to:impressions, clicks, requests, number of ads displayed, user scrollspeed, user time spent per viewing a content item, user time spentviewing an advertisement, and/or other activities performed by the userrelated to an advertisement or a stream where an advertisement may beplaced. In one or more embodiments, the metrics may be gathered on aper-position basis. That is, if the same ad is displayed to two groupsof users: group 1 and group 2, where group 1 has the ad displayed atposition 3 of the stream, while group 2 has the ad displayed at position13 of the stream, then there would be two separate sets of informationgathered on the users. This high level of detail allows publisher toensure the effectiveness of their advertisements. Alternatively, sincethe same ad was shown at two different positions (in the above example),the metrics gathered from both positions may also be combined.

In one or more embodiments, ad placer (135) includes functionality topreview an advertisement. Ad placer (135) may utilize metrics gatheredfrom advertisements placed into the streams of various applications toenable the preview. Specifically, after an ad has been rendered, SDK(125) includes functionality to traverse through an ad view hierarchyand serializes the resulting ad view information. This serialized adview information is sent to ad server (135), which stores theinformation. Ad placer (135) may then use the serialized ad viewinformation to preview an ad for a publisher (i.e., publisher device(165)). See also, FIGS. 4A-4D.

In one or more embodiments, content selector (140) includesfunctionality for selecting which variation (when available) of contentwill appear in a native ad. The content selector (140) is able to selectfrom many different types of content, such as images, text, etc. In oneor more embodiments, content selector (140) determines the largest textvariant that fits within the available space of a given ad format. Thus,if the ad format has a text width and height of 200 pixels by 300pixels, then content selector (140) is able to select a text variantthat fits within the ad format. Content selector (140) may select thelargest text variant that fits. Alternatively, content selector (140)may select the second largest text variant that fits, or any othersuitable variant. In one or more embodiments, content selector (140) mayadjust the selected text variant by, for example, changing font size,changing the font type, or making other changes that affect the size ofthe text variant, to ensure that the selected text variant properly fitswithin the ad format. Further still, content selector (140) includesfunctionality to alter the text itself. For example, content selector(140) may cut some text short and only display part of the text, whileadding ellipses ( . . . ) to indicate that text has been cut off andthat a user could, for example, click the advertisement to see the restof the text. Alternatively, content selector (140) may includefunctionality to summarize the content of the text to reduce the overalllength of the text, remove “unnecessary” words to reduce the length, orany other suitable modification to alter a text variant to fit theavailable space. While content selector (140) has been describedprimarily with regards to text, one of ordinary skill in the art, havingthe benefit of this disclosure, will understand that content selector(140) also includes functionality for selecting or modifying contentbeyond text and, as such, the invention should not be limited to theabove examples.

In one or more embodiments, image processing server (145) may be anysuitable computing device or devices, such as a server, rack, mainframe,desktop Personal Computer (PC), laptop, Personal Digital Assistant(PDA), telephone, mobile phone, kiosk, cable box, and any other device.Image processing server (145) is communicatively connected to ad server(130) and/or data store (155) via wired and/or wireless communicationsusing any suitable communication standard, such as WiFi, the Internet,cellular data, etc. In one or more embodiments, ad server (130), imageprocessing server (145), and/or data store (155) may be implemented on asingle computing device, rather than on separate computing devices asdepicted in FIG. 1. Alternatively, image processing server (145), adserver (130), and/or data store (155) may be implemented on separatecomputing devices. Image processing server (145) includes image resizer(150).

In one or more embodiments, image resizer (150) is an application ormodule executing on image processing server (145). Image resizer (150)includes functionality to resize, adjust, or otherwise edit images foradvertisements. In one or more embodiments, some, or all, of thefunctionality of image resizer (150) may be included in SDK (125), andperformed on client device (105), rather than on image processing server(145). Image resizer (150) includes functionality to scale, crop, orletterbox an image. In one or more embodiments, image resizer (150)receives an image in the form of a link to a location in data store(155). Image resizer (150) includes functionality to retrieve the imagefrom data store (155). Alternatively, the image may be provided alongwith the request sent to image resizer (150). Additional information maybe included along with the request, such as the target width and heightfor the image, height and width of the hotspot (if any), coordinates ofwhere the hotspot is (if any), or other suitable information related tothe image or resizing of the image. In one or more embodiments, imageresizer (150) includes functionality to determine when to crop, scale,or letterbox an image based on any available information.

In one or more embodiments, when image resizer (150) is cropping animage, the image may be scaled down to the target size. If there is ahotspot, the hotspot may be the determining factor—that is, the hotspotmay be scaled until the hotspot fits within the target. Subsequently,the image may be translated such that the hotspot is centered within thetarget, and all of the remaining portions of the image outside of thetarget are cropped.

In one or more embodiments, when image resizer (150) is scaling animage, the image may be scaled in one dimension (i.e., width or height)until the hotspot fits inside the target box. Then, the image may betranslated until the hotspot fits in the target, and is centered ifpossible. Then, all of the remaining image outside of the target may becropped. In one or more embodiments, when image resizer (150) isletterboxing an image, the image may be scaled in both width and heightuntil the entire image fits within the target. Then, the extra spacewithin the target, if there is any, may be filled with any color, suchas yellow, white, black, etc.

In one or more embodiments, data store (155) is a database, hard drive,server, cloud, or other suitable storage and/or computing device(s).Data store (155) may be separate from ad server (130) and/or imageprocessing server (145) as shown in FIG. 1, or may be located on thesame device or devices as ad server (130) and/or image processing server(145). Data store (155) is communicatively connected to ad server (130),image processing server (145), and/or client device (105) via wiredand/or wireless communications using any suitable communicationstandard, such as WiFi, the Internet, cellular data, etc. In one or moreembodiments, data store (155) is used to store images foradvertisements. Specifically, data store (155) may store each image at aunique web address, and the image may be retrieved by the desired entityby simply accessing the web address. In such scenarios, advertisementsmay be sent, for example, from ad server (130) to client device (105) ata greatly reduced sized if client device (105) is able to subsequentlyaccess the image (typically the largest part of an ad, in terms ofstorage space needed), via a simple web address. Alternatively, theimages in data store (155) may be accessed by other similar mechanisms.In one or more embodiments, data store (155) may also be used to storeother large files needed for advertisements such as audio, video, etc.

In one or more embodiments, developer device (160) is a computing deviceused by the developer(s), or creator(s), of application (110). Developerdevice (160) may be any computing device including, but not limited to:smart phones, laptop computers, desktop computers, tablets, etc.Developer device (160) may have various software development tools andapplications installed (not shown), so that the developer may createapplication (110). In one or more embodiments, developer device (160)may also have an SDK (not shown) installed, so that the functionalitiesof SDK (125) are also available to the developer for inclusion in theirapplication, for testing, or for any other suitable use. Developerdevice (160) is communicatively connected with ad server (130) using awired and/or wired connection, over any suitable medium, such as theInternet. As indicated by the dotted line, developer device (160) mayoptionally be communicatively connected with application (110) of clientdevice (105).

In one or more embodiments, publisher device (165) is a computing deviceused by the publisher of advertisements. Publisher device (165) may beany computing device including, but not limited to: smart phones, laptopcomputers, desktop computers, tablets, etc. Publisher device (165) iscommunicatively connected with ad server (130) using a wired and/orwired connection, over any suitable medium, such as the Internet.Publisher device (165) includes functionalities to connect with addashboard (170) for the building and preview of, advertisements using,for example, a web browser or other suitable application. Optionally,publisher device (165) may include functionalities to connect with adserver (130) and/or any other suitable device. In one or moreembodiments, the application used by publisher device (165) to access addashboard (170) may be a custom application or module.

FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of a method for placing advertisements, inaccordance with various embodiments of the invention. While the varioussteps in the flowchart are presented and described sequentially, one ofordinary skill will appreciate that some or all of the steps can beexecuted in different orders and some or all of the steps can beexecuted in parallel. Further, in one or more embodiments of theinvention, one or more of the steps can be omitted, repeated, and/orperformed in a different order. Accordingly, the specific arrangement ofsteps shown in FIG. 3 should not be construed as limiting the scope ofthe invention.

In Step 300, an ad positioning request is sent to the ad server. In oneembodiment of the invention, the ad positioning request is sent from aclient device. More specifically, in one embodiment of the invention,the ad positioning request is sent from the SDK (125) on the clientdevice. Alternatively, the request may be sent using, for example, HTML,JavaScript, or any other suitable method. The positioning request may besent based on any suitable factors, such as user activity (scrollingdown the stream, opening an application, clicking an ad, etc.), adstiming out, empty and/or depleted ad cache, or any other suitablefactor. The ad positioning request may be sent in any format and usingany method now known or later developed.

In Step 305, ad positioning information is determined based on a varietyof factors. In one or more embodiments, the positioning may have beenpreviously specified by the publisher of the advertisement.Alternatively, the positioning may have been specified by theadvertiser, developer, or other suitable entity. The specifiedpositioning may indicate static positions within the stream where anadvertisement should appear. For example, a publisher may specify thathe or she wants an ad to be placed at position 3, 8, and 16 of a stream.Alternatively, the positions may be relative positions—positions thatare based off of other measurements, such as another advertisement, howfar a user scrolls in the stream, etc. In one or more embodiments, thepositioning specified by the publisher may be repeating. For example,the publisher may specify that the first advertisement should appear atposition 4, and repeat every 7 positions after that.

In one or more embodiments, the publisher, advertiser, or other suitableentity may instead specify that advertisements should appear next to arelated content item. The advertisements, and/or the content items inthe stream, may be associated with one or more subjects. For example, ifthe advertisement is for hiking equipment, then the subject associatedwith that advertisement may be hiking, nature, outdoors, etc.Accordingly, the advertiser, publisher, or other suitable entity mayspecify that the hiking equipment ad should appear near content relatedto the subjects associated with the advertisements (e.g., content itemsabout hiking, nature, the outdoors, etc.). In one or more embodiments,this information is not known until milliseconds before the ad or adsmay be inserted into the stream, and thus, the ad positioning may behandled on the client device in this embodiment. In one or moreembodiments, even when specifying that advertisements should appear nearrelated content, positional information may be provided in the eventthat there is no related content—then other ads may be placed as normal.

In one or more embodiments, the positional information may include alimit on the number of ads that appear in the stream, such as a limit of5 total advertisements. Alternatively, or additionally, a limit onadvertisements in a given space may be provided. For example, there maybe a limit of a maximum of 3 advertisements within any 10 positions,thus ensuring that at maximum, only 30% of the stream is advertisements.Alternatively, the advertisements may be limited in any other suitableway.

In one or more embodiments, the positioning of advertisements isseparate from the actual advertisement that will appear in saidposition(s). In other words, while a publisher may specify he or shewants an advertisement to appear every 5 positions, the same ad wouldnot necessarily appear every 5 spaces. Rather, a different ad may appearin every specified position (i.e., position 5 has Ad A, position 10 hasAd B, position 15 has Ad C, etc.). Alternatively, some of the positionsmay have repeated ads placed in them. In one or more embodiments, the adpositioning information may additionally specify the type ofadvertisement that may appear in said position, such as text, video,audio, etc.

In one embodiment of the invention, the ad positioning information ismay be provided on a per-publisher basis or on a per ad-basis. Forexample, the publisher may specify that ads should only be shown in thestream per the ad positioning information but that the actual ad shownin these positions may be determined by the ad server using any known orlater implemented mechanism. In the above example, the publisher may bean application developer of an application, where the applicationincludes a stream and the publisher only wants ads to be shown incertain positions within the stream in order to not impact the userexperience with the application.

In Step 310, ad positioning information is provided, by the ad placer,to a client device. The ad positioning information may be sent in anyformat and/or using any method now known or later developed. The adpositioning information may be provided along with any other suitableinformation.

In Step 315, ads are placed according to the ad positioning information.The ads may be placed in any application, stream, or other suitablelocation. Once placed, the ads may have a timer associated with them sothat they may be refreshed and/or replaced by a different ad after atime period. In one or more embodiments, when an ad is supposed to beplaced near related content, the client device may override theplacement decisions made by the ad server. The placement decisions maybe overridden in any suitable manner.

In one or more embodiments, the ads may be placed in absolute positions(based on the ad positioning information). For example, in anapplication that adds content from the top of the stream, when thecontent is refreshed (i.e., a new content item is added to the top ofthe stream, thereby pushing older content down), the ads mayautomatically move up such that they are still in the same absoluteposition. Alternatively, once placed, the ads may not adjust theirposition. In other words, in the above example, if a content item isadded at the top of the stream, the ads would move effectively move downone position in the stream.

In one embodiment of the invention, the ad that are placed in the streamin Step 315 may be ads that are obtained from the ad server at any timeprior to the ads being placed in the stream.

In Step 320, usage of the application is monitored. The usage of theapplication may be monitored in any manner now known or later developed.Additionally, any aspect of the application or the usage of theapplication may be monitored including, but not limited to: scroll rate,time spent viewing each content item, time spent in the application perday, favorite content, ad click rate, ads viewed, and/or any other usethat may be monitored. The collected usage information may be stored,either temporarily or permanently, on the client device. In one or moreembodiments, the usage may be gathered on a per-position basis. That is,if the same ad is displayed to two groups of users: group 1 and group 2,where group 1 has the ad displayed at position 3 of the stream, whilegroup 2 has the ad displayed at position 13 of the stream, then therewould be two separate sets of information gathered on the users. Thishigh level of detail allows publisher to ensure the effectiveness oftheir advertisements. Alternatively, since the same ad was shown at twodifferent positions (in the above example), the usage informationgathered from both positions may also be combined. In one or moreembodiments, usage information about the user's usage of the device mayalso be collected. This may include any available information,including, but not limited to: time spent interacting with the device,standby time, frequency use of applications installed on the device,and/or any other suitable usage information.

In Step 325, usage of the application (also referred to as usageinformation) is sent to the ad server. The usage information may be sentto the ad server in any manner now known or later developed. Oncereceived by the ad server, the usage may be stored in any suitablemanner. In one or more embodiments, the usage information may be storedon a per-application per user basis (where the user may remainanonymous). Alternatively, the usage information may be aggregated inany suitable manner, such as per application. The usage information maybe used by the ad server for recommending better placement ofadvertisements, automatically updating the positioning information for agiven publisher, or for any other use. For example, if the publisherinitially specifies that an absolute ad placement in locations 1 and 8of the stream but, based on the usage information, users of theapplication have a tendency to scroll past the first 10 items (contentand advertisements) in the stream, then the ad placer may automaticallyadjust the ad positioning information, for example, to show the ads inpositions 11 and 19. The ad placer may then continue to collect usageinformation for the application and, if appropriate, update the adpositioning information again if the ad placer, using the usageinformation, determines that the new positions (i.e., positions 11 and19 in the stream) are not effective.

In one or more embodiments, the usage information may be used by the adserver to automatically place advertisements without input from anadvertiser, publisher, or other suitable entity. For example, anadvertiser may simply create an advertisement without specifying wherein a stream the advertisement should be displayed, and the ad server maythen use the usage information to automatically place the advertisementin an appropriate location within the stream.

Any, or all, of the steps of FIG. 3 may be performed on an ad server.Alternatively, any, or all, of the steps of FIG. 3 may be performed on aclient device. Further still, the steps of FIG. 3 may be performed bysome combination of an ad server and a client device. The determinationas to whether an ad server or a client device should perform a givenstep of FIG. 3 may be made by either device at any time, and for anysuitable reason.

The following section describes various examples of the invention. Theexamples are included to aid in the understanding of the invention andare not intended to limit the scope of the invention.

FIGS. 4A, 4B, 4C, and 4D show examples of ad positioning. Specifically,FIG. 4A shows an example of placing single ads at specified positions.Ad placer 1 (400) is an example of a user interface that may bepresented to the publisher when they are determining ad placement for agiven or set of ads. Ad placer 1 (400) enables the publisher to specifyexactly where he or should would like their ads to appear in the streamof a user. Thus, in ad placer 1 (400), the publisher has elected to setspecific positions for their advertisements, and has selected positions2 and 5 for advertisements. This information is sent to a client devicein response to a request for ad positioning. A user interface of aclient device (405) is shown that includes a stream with content itemsat positions 1, 3, and 4, and advertisements at positions 2 and 5.

FIG. 4B shows an example of placing ads with repeating positions. Adplacer 2 (410) shows that the publisher has elected to set repeatingpositions for advertisements. Specifically, the publisher has selectedthe first position for an ad to be position 1, with 3 spaces betweeneach ad. This information is sent to a client device in response to arequest for ad positioning. A user interface of a client device (415) isshown that includes a stream with content at positions 2, 3, and 4, andadvertisements at positions 1 and 5.

FIG. 4C shows an example of placing ads with specific formats. In adplacer 3 (420), the publisher has elected to set specific positions andformats for their advertisements, and has selected positions 2 and 5 foradvertisements. The publisher has further specified that the ad inposition 2 should be a text advertisement, while the ad in position 5should be a video advertisement. This information is sent to a clientdevice in response to a request for ad positioning. A user interface ofa client device (425) is shown that includes a stream with content itemsat positions 1, 3, and 4, a text advertisement at position 2, and avideo advertisement at position 5.

FIG. 4D shows an example of placing ads near related content. In adplacer 4 (430), the publisher has elected to use content basedpositioning. Additionally, the publisher has specified that he or shewould like to place up to three ads, one ad is related to nature, one adis related to cars, and one ad is related to politics. This informationis sent to a client device in response to a request for ad positioning.A user interface of a client device (435) is shown that includes astream with nature content in position 1, sports content in position 3,and car content in position 5. In response to this information theclient device determines where to place the correspondingadvertisements, and overrides any positioning information previouslyprovided to it by the ad server. Thus, there is a nature ad in position2 and a car ad in position 4—next to their related content items.

Optionally, the user interface may also allow the publisher to specifyspecific locations for the advertisements to appear, in the event thatthere is not related content (or even have other advertisements appearin the specified locations in lieu of the content specificadvertisements). Thus, the publisher could have specified that anadvertisement should appear at position 1, but the client deviceoverrode that instruction due to the fact that there was content relatedto the subject of the advertisements.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that while FIGS. 4A-4D showsfour separate ad placers, a single ad placer may implement all four adpositioning schemes described in FIGS. 4A-4D.

Embodiments of the invention may be implemented on any type of computingsystem regardless of the platform being used. For example, the computingsystem may be one or more mobile devices (e.g., laptop computer, smartphone, personal digital assistant, tablet computer, or other mobiledevice), desktop computers, servers, blades in a server chassis, or anyother type of computing device or devices that includes at least theminimum processing power, memory, and input and output device(s) toperform one or more embodiments of the invention. For example, as shownin FIG. 5, the computing system (500) may include one or more computerprocessor(s) (502), associated memory (504) (e.g., random access memory(RAM), cache memory, flash memory, etc.), one or more storage device(s)(506) (e.g., a hard disk, an optical drive such as a compact disk (CD)drive or digital versatile disk (DVD) drive, a flash memory stick,etc.), and numerous other elements and functionalities. The computerprocessor(s) (502) may be an integrated circuit for processinginstructions. For example, the computer processor(s) may be one or morecores, or micro-cores of a processor. The computing system (500) mayalso include one or more input device(s) (510), such as a touchscreen,keyboard, mouse, microphone, touchpad, electronic pen, or any other typeof input device. Further, the computing system (500) may include one ormore output device(s) (508), such as a screen (e.g., a liquid crystaldisplay (LCD), a plasma display, touchscreen, cathode ray tube (CRT)monitor, projector, or other display device), a printer, externalstorage, or any other output device. One or more of the output device(s)may be the same or different from the input device(s). The computingsystem (500) may be connected to a network (512) (e.g., a local areanetwork (LAN), a wide area network (WAN) such as the Internet, mobilenetwork, or any other type of network) via a network interfaceconnection (not shown). The input and output device(s) may be locally orremotely (e.g., via the network (512)) connected to the computerprocessor(s) (502), memory (504), and storage device(s) (506). Manydifferent types of computing systems exist, and the aforementioned inputand output device(s) may take other forms.

Software instructions in the form of computer readable program code toperform embodiments of the invention may be stored, in whole or in part,temporarily or permanently, on a non-transitory computer readable mediumsuch as a CD, DVD, storage device, a diskette, a tape, flash memory,physical memory, or any other computer readable storage medium.Specifically, the software instructions may correspond to computerreadable program code that when executed by a processor(s), isconfigured to perform embodiments of the invention.

Further, one or more elements of the aforementioned computing system(500) may be located at a remote location and connected to the otherelements over a network (512). Further, embodiments of the invention maybe implemented on a distributed system having a plurality of nodes,where each portion of the invention may be located on a different nodewithin the distributed system. In one embodiment of the invention, thenode corresponds to a distinct computing device. Alternatively, the nodemay correspond to a computer processor with associated physical memory.The node may alternatively correspond to a computer processor ormicro-core of a computer processor with shared memory and/or resources.

While various embodiments have been described and/or illustrated hereinin the context of fully functional computing systems, one or more ofthese example embodiments may be distributed as a program product in avariety of forms, regardless of the particular type of computer-readablemedia used to actually carry out the distribution. The embodimentsdisclosed herein may also be implemented using software modules thatperform certain tasks. These software modules may include script, batch,or other executable files that may be stored on a computer-readablestorage medium or in a computing system. These software modules mayconfigure a computing system to perform one or more of the exampleembodiments disclosed herein. One or more of the software modulesdisclosed herein may be implemented in a cloud computing environment.Cloud computing environments may provide various services andapplications via the Internet. These cloud-based services (e.g.,software as a service, platform as a service, infrastructure as aservice, etc.) may be accessible through a Web browser or other remoteinterface. Various functions described herein may be provided through aremote desktop environment or any other cloud-based computingenvironment.

While the foregoing disclosure sets forth various embodiments usingspecific block diagrams, flowcharts, and examples, each block diagramcomponent, flowchart step, operation, and/or component described and/orillustrated herein may be implemented, individually and/or collectively,using a wide range of hardware, software, or firmware (or anycombination thereof) configurations. In addition, any disclosure ofcomponents contained within other components should be considered asexamples because many other architectures may be implemented to achievethe same functionality.

The process parameters and sequence of steps described and/orillustrated herein are given by way of example only. For example, whilethe steps illustrated and/or described herein may be shown or discussedin a particular order, these steps do not necessarily need to beperformed in the order illustrated or discussed. The various examplemethods described and/or illustrated herein may also omit one or more ofthe steps described or illustrated herein or include additional steps inaddition to those disclosed.

While the invention has been described with respect to a limited numberof embodiments, those skilled in the art, having benefit of thisdisclosure, will appreciate that other embodiments can be devised whichdo not depart from the scope of the invention as disclosed herein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of placing a targeted content item in amessage stream, the method comprising: sending, from a computing system,a request for a targeted content position; receiving, in response to therequest, the targeted content position in the message stream and arelated content position in the message stream, wherein the targetedcontent position and the related content position are differentpositions within the message stream, wherein the related contentposition comprises a position in the message stream relative to arelated content item that is associated with the targeted content item,wherein a subject of content in the related content item is related to asubject of content in the targeted content item; determining, by thecomputing system, whether the related content item is present in themessage stream; placing, by the computing system, the targeted contentitem in one of the related content position within the message stream orthe targeted content position within the message stream, wherein thecomputing system places the targeted content item in the related contentposition in response to determining that the related content item ispresent in the message stream, and wherein computing system otherwiseplaces the targeted content item in the targeted content position; andsending, by the computing system, the message stream to a client devicefor display at the client device.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thetargeted content position is selected from a group consisting of: astatic targeted content position in the message stream, a relativetargeted content position in the message stream, and a set of repeatingpositions for the message stream.
 3. The method of claim 1, whereindetermining the targeted content position comprises determining thetargeted content position based on at least one of a content providerpreference, an application developer preference where the deviceexecutes an application, a device user's usage of the application, andthe device user's usage of the device.
 4. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: collecting usage information of an application after placingthe targeted content item; and sending the usage information to acontent server, wherein the usage information is used by the contentserver to automatically determine the content positioning informationwithout input from a content provider.
 5. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: receiving an updated request for the targeted contentposition, wherein the updated request is in response to refreshing themessage stream.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the targeted contentposition and the related content position each specify contentpositioning information for at least two different content formats, andwherein the at least two different content formats comprise two or moreof video, text only, or text and images.
 7. A method of placing atargeted content item in a message stream, the method comprising:receiving, from a computing system, a request for a targeted contentposition in a message stream for a targeted content item; in response tothe request: determining content positioning information for at leasttwo different content formats, wherein the at least two differentcontent formats comprise two or more of video, text only, or text andimages, wherein determining the content positioning informationcomprises: determining the targeted content position in the messagestream; and determining a related content position in the messagestream, wherein the targeted content position and the related contentposition are different positions within the message stream, wherein therelated content position comprises a position in the message streamrelative to a related content item associated with the targeted contentitem, wherein a subject of content in the related content item isrelated to a subject of content in the targeted content item; andproviding the content positioning information and the targeted contentitem to the device.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein determining thecontent positioning information further comprises determining a set ofrepeating positions for the message stream.
 9. The method of claim 7,wherein determining the targeted content position comprises determiningthe targeted content position based on at least one of a contentprovider preference, an application developer preference wherein thedevice executes an application, a device user's usage of theapplication, and the device user's usage of the device.
 10. The methodof claim 7, further comprising: collecting usage information of theapplication after placing the targeted content item; and sending theusage information to a content server.
 11. The method of claim 7,further comprising: receiving an updated request for the targetedcontent position, wherein the updated request is in response torefreshing the message stream.
 12. A system comprising: one or moreprocessors; and a computer-readable storage medium storing instructionsthat, when executed, cause the one or more processors to: receive, froma device, a request for a targeted content position in a message streamfor a targeted content item; in response to the request: determinecontent positioning information, wherein determining the contentpositioning information comprises: determining the targeted contentposition in the message stream; and determining a related contentposition in the message stream, wherein the targeted content positionand the related content position are different positions within themessage stream, wherein the related content position comprises aposition in the message stream relative to a related content itemassociated with the targeted content item, wherein a subject of contentin the related content item is related to a subject of content in thetargeted content item; and provide the content positioning informationand the targeted content item to the device.
 13. The system of claim 12,wherein the instructions further cause the at least one processor todetermine a set of repeating positions for the message stream.
 14. Thesystem of claim 12, wherein determining the targeted content positioncomprises determining the targeted content position based on at leastone of a content provider preference, an application developerpreference wherein the device executes an application, a device user'susage of the application, and the device user's usage of the device. 15.The system of claim 12, wherein the instructions further cause the atleast one processor to: receive usage information of an application; anddetermine, using the usage information, second content positioninginformation without input from a content provider, wherein the secondcontent positioning information specifies different content positionsthan specified by the first content positioning information; provide thesecond content positioning information to the device.
 16. The system ofclaim 12, wherein the instructions further cause the at least oneprocessor to: receive an updated request for at least one targetedcontent position, wherein the updated request is in response torefreshing the message stream.
 17. The system of claim 12, wherein thecontent positioning information specifies content positioninginformation for at least two different content formats, wherein the atleast two different content formats comprise two or more of video, textonly, or text and images.
 18. The system of claim 12, wherein the devicecomprises a mobile device.
 19. A non-transitory computer readable mediumstoring instructions that, when executed by a computer processor, causethe computer processor to: send a request for a targeted contentposition; receive, in response to the request, the targeted contentposition in the message stream and a related content position in themessage stream, wherein the targeted content position and the relatedcontent position are different positions within the message stream,wherein the related content position comprises a position in the messagestream relative to a related content item that is associated with thetargeted content item, wherein a subject of content in the relatedcontent item is related to a subject of content in the targeted contentitem; determine whether the related content item is present in themessage stream; place the targeted content item in one of the relatedcontent position within the message stream or the targeted contentposition within the message stream, wherein the instructions cause thecomputer processor to place the targeted content item in the relatedcontent position in response to determining that the related contentitem is present in the message stream, and wherein the instructionsotherwise cause the computer processor to place the targeted contentitem in the targeted content position; and send the message stream to aclient device for display at the client device.
 20. The non-transitorycomputer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the targeted contentposition is selected from a group consisting of: a static targetedcontent position in the message stream, a relative targeted contentposition in the message stream, and a set of repeating positions for themessage stream.
 21. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim19, wherein determining the targeted content position comprisesdetermining the targeted content position based on at least one of acontent provider preference, an application developer preference wherethe device executes an application, a device user's usage of theapplication, and the device user's usage of the device.
 22. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein theinstructions further cause the at least one processor to: collect usageinformation of an application after placing the targeted content item;and send the usage information to a content server, wherein the usageinformation is used by the content server to automatically determine thecontent positioning information without input from a content provider.23. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein theinstructions further cause the at least one processor to: receive anupdated request for the targeted content position, wherein the updatedrequest is in response to refreshing the message stream.
 24. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein thetargeted content position and the related content position each specifycontent positioning information for at least two different contentformats, and wherein the at least two different content formats comprisetwo or more of video, text only, or text and images.